


Look Away

by NorthernStar



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Before They Were Friends, Character Study, Episode S1:04 - The Good Soldier, Gen, Grief, Massacre of Savoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-19 23:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2407577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthernStar/pseuds/NorthernStar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Have you forgotten about the Massacre of Savoy, five years ago?”</i>
</p><p>He hadn’t, of course.  But he cared not to think on it.  Because the pain of <b>Her</b> was so fresh.  Wine-soaked, bitter, angry; there was nothing soft left in his hardened heart to feel sympathy for the boy, Aramis, and what he had suffered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look Away

**Author's Note:**

> At the beginning of The Good Soldier, Athos asks Porthos what's wrong with Aramis and while it is just one of those "for the benefit of the audience" lines that drama requires, and a well executed one at that, it has always bothered me that he doesn't know. So I wrote this but abandoned it. Came back to it after a re-watch and decided to post it.

The ale has grown warm cupped between his hands but it did not impair the flavour.  It had not any to begin with.  Athos suspected that it was swill like this that the farmers on the de la Fere lands used to dip the sheep in to keep their wool free of disease, but at least it was cheap, and plentiful and succeeded in numbing the pain of his loss and betrayal and burning away the terrible aching _want_ he still carried inside for Anne’s traitorous flesh.

The other musketeers had learned to give him a wide berth in the tavern and not one of them approached his table or dared to look his way.  Even the serving girl kept her eyes low when she brought him refills and did not speak.  Since joining the Musketeers, almost all of his comrades had tried to drag him into their merriment at one time or another, stupidly slow to comprehend that he neither desired nor needed their company, and all had suffered for it.  Now he and his table and his beer was automatically granted a kind of No Man’s Land of which he alone was King and only the very new or the very foolish or the very, _very_ drunk crossed it.

Athos looked up from his ale.  His comrades at least had good reason to celebrate tonight.  (They rarely needed any excuse, other than that they were alive and thirsty and their purses weren’t empty.)

Aramis had joined them.  Freed from his sickbed, still too pale from being bled by the surgeons who had stitched his wounds, he smiled a little too widely and laughed far too hollowly to be convincing.  He was a good way to being ridiculously drunk, a state that Athos could not remember him ever reaching before, and was still standing only be virtue of an arm slung around a serving girl’s shoulders.

It was an appallingly bad act.  Athos snorted and downed the last of his beer before throwing a dark look over at the girl who always served him.  She hurried over with a jug, filled his flagon and retreated.

Athos took a long pull of the fresh pint, cooler and cleaner tasting.  It was almost passable.  Almost.

He heard Aramis laugh again and looked up to see the young man’s friends join in, clearly delighted to have him back, safe and well, after they had mourned him. 

Fools.

The boy was neither convincing nor an especially good actor and yet no one seemed to see the tension in Aramis’ body that, no matter how much beer he forced down his throat, would not go.  How could anyone who knew the boy see that smile and hear that laughter and think it was genuine?

_Anne had wept so prettily when Thomas died, so full of the raw grief that clawed at his heart, it was as if he did not need to shed his own tears to be cleansed by them._

He swallowed more ale.  Clearly he had not drunk enough if he could still picture that as if it were five minutes ago and not five months.

Athos ignored his drunken comrades for some time then, consumed only by the need to kill that image, if only for a little while.  The musketeers slowly disappeared as their money ran out, leaving the tavern almost as empty as their purses until only Porthos remained, at the card table, and Aramis…

He watched the young musketeer, hunched now over table, his long black hair falling over his face.  No doubt he thought he was alone now and perhaps even too drunk to notice or care that he wasn’t. 

Too tired, Athos decided as he took in the helpless slump of Aramis’ shoulders.  Exhausted by his own pretence that he was just as he ever was, hale and hearty, and not the sole survivor of a blood massacre, left bleeding and barely conscious in the snow surrounded by corpses, by his closest friend, too shocked and traumatised to ever be trusted as a good soldier ever again.

_His servants had all looked at him with such disgusting pity in their eyes and it was nothing like respect._

Athos knew the boy mostly by reputation, having conversed with him (or any of the other musketeers) only out of necessity since he joined them.  Aramis was admired as brilliant swordsman, the best shot in the regiment and as a good and amiable friend but those were only words.

 _Anne had been so good with words, every one so carefully chosen and so full of_ truth _, that his heart still revolted at the certainty that they were lies._

Athos signalled for a refill.  For some reason, the oblivion of drink was harder to achieve tonight. 

Across the room, Aramis tipped back the last of his wine and fumbled putting the bottle back down.  It slipped from his fingers, rolled over the edge of the table and smashed on the ground.

The boy didn’t move, just slumped there staring at the shattered remains. 

Athos saw Porthos get up.  He was newer in the regiment than even Athos, and even more unwelcomed, because he had Africa in his blood and his worth would always be counted in coin and not in trust.

Athos suspected he was less concerned with Aramis’ wellbeing than he was with quitting a game that had not gone his way all night.

“Think you’ve had enough.”  Porthos told Aramis and he sounded sincere enough.  “Come on.”  He slung Aramis’ arm over his shoulders and hauled him up. 

The Red Guard who had been thrashing him called out to him to finish the game.

“I fold.”  Porthos said.

The man stood, “so you are a coward as well as a swindler.”

“We’ll play a rematch tomorrow.”

 _When his luck is better_ , Athos thought and swallowed another mouthful of ale.

“No we finish tonight!”  The Red Guard demanded.  “You will drop that pitiful excuse for a musketeer or I will drop him for you.”

Aramis reacted to the insult but it was almost comical because his blood was too thin, his body too weak and he clearly had never been this drunk in his life and all he could do was flail in Porthos’ arms so that his comrade had to struggle to keep him from pitching them both to the ground.

“Are you just goin’ to sit there?”  Porthos called out to him.

“I see no reason why not.” 

Athos watched Porthos calculate his best move with admirable speed.  Fighting was clearly an option, but not a good one, with the burden of Aramis in his arms.

“Fine.”  Porthos said and dumped Aramis down in the seat across from Athos – at Athos’ _table_ – before striding over to the Red Guard.

Aramis’ head came up, dark brown eyes staring right into his own.  Perhaps he was simply too drunk to hide it any more or too tired, because in their depth was something terrible.

_When he looked out at the tree, the morning after he had watched Anne hang, he caught sight only of himself reflected in the window.  Eyes full of bitterness and sorrow, ghostly and transparent against the world beyond._

Incredibly, Aramis’ lips curved up slowly into a smile.  Not like those wide and false grins he had been hiding behind all night but small and genuine and fragile, as if from one pretender to another.

He buried his face in his flagon and drained it dry.  There was nothing left in his heart to feel sympathy for this boy and if he was searching for hope he would find none in his company.

There was a sound of coins hitting the table and Athos looked over to see Porthos emptying his pockets.  “That’s everythin’ you would have won.”  He ground out. 

Athos felt a flicker of surprise under the hum of ale in his veins.  Perhaps the man’s concern for Aramis had been real after all.  And he couldn’t help himself reappraising him as he returned to Aramis and pulled him to his feet.

Behind Porthos, the Red Guard went to draw his sword.

Athos sighed and stood, stepping out just enough to grip the man’s wrist as he approached Porthos’ back.  “You could draw, if you like, but you are a gambling man are you not?”  Athos said.  “I believe the odds here are 3 to 1, in our favour.”

The man looked between him and Porthos.

“You have your winnings.”  Athos heard the ice in his voice. 

The Red Guard turned abruptly and strode back to his table.

“Thanks.”  Porthos said and Athos heard the warmth of friendship in that simple word.  And as if to confirm it, he continued, “if you take his other arm, we’d get him home faster.”

“You’re welcome.”  Athos replied and sat back down.  “But no.”  They had interrupted his drinking long enough.

Porthos muttered something under his breath and began hauling Aramis out.

Athos watched them go.  He did not need friends.

  
  
-o0o-  


The ground was still wet from the rain the day before and Athos’ feet sunk into the mushy dirt.  He stood staring down at Marsac’s grave which was marked by his sword, setting it apart from the other musketeers buried here.  In the eyes of the rest of the regiment, Marsac would always be separate and in truth he had only been laid to rest here, among the men he had abandoned in that forest in Savoy, out of respect for Aramis.  Why he had felt the need to come here, he could only guess.  An apology, perhaps, for not giving these men the memorial in his heart that they had deserved back then.

That Aramis had deserved, young as he had been.

Another regret to add to so many.

Aramis had not spoken his thoughts about his friend’s death.  Nor of what he learned about Treville.  Athos now knew his friend too well to think that he ever would.

But perhaps tonight their eyes would meet again across the table, in the kinship of buried sorrow, and this time he wouldn’t look away.


End file.
